Do We Still Need to Celebrate Black History Month?

February 1 began Black History Month, a national annual observance since 1926, honoring and celebrating the achievements of African-Americans.

This February 1, the International Civil Rights Center and Museum (ICRCM) opened in Greensboro, North Carolina, honoring the courageous action of four African- American students. Their actions led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which mandated desegregation of all public accommodations.

Fifty years ago on February 1, 1960, the now ICRCM was a Woolworth’s store and the site of the original sit-in where Ezell A. Blair Jr. (also known as Jibreel Khazan), David Leinhail Richmond , Joseph Alfred McNeil, and Franklin Eugene McCain from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (NC A&T), a historically black college, sat at its lunch counter as a form of non-violent direct action protesting the store’s segregated seating policy. And as a result of their civil disobedience, sit-ins sprung up not only in Greensboro but throughout the South, challenging other forms of this nation’s segregated public accommodations, including bathrooms, water fountains, parks, theaters, and swimming pools, to name a few.

If Dr. Carter Woodson , the Father of Black History, were alive today, he would be proud that the ICRCM opened this month.

However, for a younger generation of African- Americans as well as whites, whose ballots helped elect this country’s first African-American president, celebrating Black History Month seems outdated.

“Obama is post-racial. And Black History Month is old school,” Josh Dawson (26) of New Hampshire tells me.

For many whites as well as people of color of Dawson’s generation, Obama’s race was a “non-issue.” And Obama’s election encapsulated for them both the physical and symbolic representation of Martin Luther King’s vision uttered in his historic “I Have a Dream ” during the 1963 March on Washington.

“King said don’t judge by the color of our skin, but instead the content of our character,” Dawson continues.

In proving how “post-racial” Obama was as a presidential candidate, Michael Crowley of “The New Republic” wrote in his article “Post-racial” that it wasn’t only liberals who had no problem with Obama’s race but conservatives had no problem too, even the infamous ex-Klansman David Duke.

“Even white Supremacists don’t hate Obama,” Crowley writes about Duke. “[Duke] seems almost nonchalant about Obama, don’t see much difference in Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton–or, for that matter, John McCain.”

For years, the celebration of Black History Month has always brought up the ire around “identity politics” and “special rights.”

‘If we’re gonna’ have Black History Month, why not White History Month? Italian History Month? Chinese History Month?,” Dawson questions.

During the George W. Bush years we saw the waning interest in “identity politics,” creating both political and systematic disempowerment of marginalized groups, like people of color, women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. We also saw the gradual dismantling of affirmative action policies, like in 2003 when the Supreme Court split the difference on affirmative action, allowing the Bakke case on reverse discrimination to stand.

In celebrating Black History Month this year in what is now perceived by some to be one year in the “post-racial” era since Obama took office, I worry how we as a nation will honestly talk about race.

For example, during Black History Month in 2009, Eric Holder received scathing criticism for his speech on race. His critics said the tone and tenor of the speech was confrontational and accusatory.

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot,” Holder said, “in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”

Within the African- American LGBTQ community, Black History Month has always come under criticism. And rightly so! The absence of LGBTQ people of African descent in the month-long celebration is evidence of how race, gender and sexual politics of the dominant culture are reinscribed in black culture as well.

It leads you to believe that the only shakers and movers in the history of people of African descent in the U.S. were and still are heterosexuals. And because of this heterosexist bias, the sheroes and heroes of LGBTQ people of African decent — like Pat Parker, Audre Lorde, Essex Hemphill, Joseph Beam, and Bayard Rustin — are mostly known and lauded within a subculture of black life.

However, the argument that celebrating Black History Month in 2010 is no more than a celebration of a relic tethered to an old defunct paradigm of the civil rights era and is a hindrance to black people moving forward is bogus.

To move forward you must look back.

And in so doing ask ourselves, were it not for the successful sit-ins, marches, and boycotts of the 1960’s, could we have this conversation in 2010?

About Rev. Irene Monroe

Rev. Irene Monroe is a Ford Fellow and doctoral candidate at Harvard Divinity School. One of Monroe’s outreach ministries is the several religion columns she writes - “The Religion Thang,” for In Newsweekly, the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender newspaper that circulates widely throughout New England, “Faith Matters” for The Advocate Magazine, a national gay & lesbian magazine, and “Queer Take,” for The Witness, a progressive Episcopalian journal. Her writings have also appeared in Boston Herald and in the Boston Globe. Her award-winning essay, “Louis Farrakhan’s Ministry of Misogyny and Homophobia”, was greeted with critical acclaim.

Monroe states that her “columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American , queer and religious studies. As an religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other ” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism.”

Comments

Race clearly is still an issue, or Obama wouldn’t be the “the physical and symbolic representation of Martin Luther King’s vision.” Perhaps a better way to describe the effect of Obama’s race with the electorate is that he represents the dreams both whites and blacks have struggled for since the 1960s. His race isn’t a non-issue to white voters; they eagerly voted for a black man hoping his election would take our country to the next level in racial equality. Of course many voters also believed he would help us create a more balanced government, lead us out of the quagmires in the Middle East and redirect national priorities toward productive domestic initiatives. That’s certainly not the way it’s turned out so far.

Should we stop celebrating Black History Month now that we’re “post racial?” Heck no. A black president is a great role model, but too many racial problems still exist and will continue to exist in the future. We need to continue to shine the light and improve racial equity in our country.

What should we do about the ongoing problem of AA religious cultures oppressing LGBT members of our communities? I suggest establishing a LGBTX History Week during the month of February, with an emphasis on AA queers who worked for racial equality. Then repeat that week’s race-related events, articles and activities throughout the Gay History Month in October. What better way to bring to light the great Americans who have struggled for equality as they experienced double oppression!

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